The fundamentals of CLIL methodology in the teaching of specific contents

Ristret

The acronym CLIL, Content and Language Integrated Learning, has become a kind of master key which should pave the way for teaching/learning languages better and faster. The Italian translation “Integrated Teaching of Language and Contents”, by exchanging terms and putting Language before Contents, has often understood CLIL as a didactic intervention aimed at mainly improving linguistic competence, neglecting or underestimating cognitive aspects. Instead, it is a matter of mediating (teaching/helping to learn) a non-linguistic content (technical, scientific, philosophical, mathematical, etc.) in a foreign language (FL) or a minority language (L2), i.e. in a language other than the language of instruction. The primary objective is therefore to learn a new cognitive content, using a specific language level to support students first and foremost to understand and only then, gradually and progressively, to speak, read and write using the so-called sectorial languages or specific technical languages. In order to implement the CLIL methodology, it is necessary first of all that the materials and activities proposed are in line with the level of cognitive competence of learners, taking into account – for example – the fact that many years are necessary to master the notions of time, space, quality and quantity. The CLIL teacher, therefore, must be able to choose contents that are suitable for the cognitive competence of the students and that are able to arouse their interest and curiosity, thus nourishing their desire to learn. This is the basis for designing activities in two (bilingual education) or more languages (multilingual education), through teamwork (team teaching) conducted with the teacher of Italian (language of instruction), foreign language (French, English, German, etc.) and/or minority language (Friulian, Slovenian, Romanian, Albanian, and so on), in a key that we can define as contrastive and that compares the similarities and differences between two or more languages and two or more cultures.